Poetic Foundations AP Literature

What is a Sonnet?

A 14-line poem with a specific rhyme scheme and meter, often about love or philosophy.

What are the three main types of Sonnets?

English (Shakespearean), Italian (Petrarchan), and Spenserian.

What is a Shakespearean Sonnet?

A sonnet with three quatrains and a final couplet, following the ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme.

What is a Petrarchan Sonnet?

A sonnet divided into an octave (ABBAABBA) and a sestet (CDECDE or CDCDCD).

What is a Spenserian Sonnet?

A sonnet with the rhyme scheme ABBABCBCCDCDEE

What is a Ballad?

A narrative poem, often set to music, with simple language and repeated refrains.

What is a Haiku?

A Japanese form of poetry with three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, typically about nature.

What is a Limerick?

A humorous five-line poem with an AABBA rhyme scheme.

What is a Villanelle?

A 19-line poem with repeated lines and a strict rhyme scheme (ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA).

What is a Sestina?

A 39-line poem where the six ending words rotate in a fixed pattern.

What is Ottava Rima?

An eight-line stanza with an ABABABCC rhyme scheme, often used in epic poetry.

What is Blank Verse?

Unrhymed iambic pentameter, often used in Shakespeare’s plays.

What are Heroic Couplets?

Pairs of rhymed iambic pentameter lines, often used in epic poetry.

What is Verse?

Writing arranged with a metrical rhythm, often with rhyme.

What is Formal Verse?

Poetry that follows fixed rules of meter and rhyme.

What is Free Verse?

Poetry without a fixed meter or rhyme scheme.

What is the Oral Tradition?

The transmission of stories and poetry through speech before written records.

Why was early poetry performative?

It was recited or sung aloud to entertain and educate audiences.

What is The Epic of Gilgamesh?

One of the oldest known epics, from ancient Mesopotamia.

Who is Walt Whitman?

A 19th-century American poet known for pioneering free verse.

What is Leaves of Grass?

Walt Whitman’s poetry collection that celebrated democracy and nature.

What was the Verse Libre Movement?

A movement advocating for free verse poetry in the late 19th century.

Who were the Modernist Free Verse Poets?

Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, among others.

What is a Poem?

A literary composition that expresses emotions or ideas in a structured or rhythmic way.

What is a Line in poetry?

A single row of words in a poem.

What is a Stanza?

A grouped set of lines in a poem, often separated by a space.

What is a Canto?

A major division in a long poem, similar to a chapter in a book.

Who is the Speaker in poetry?

The voice or persona narrating the poem, not necessarily the poet.

What is the Poetic Situation?

The circumstances and context of the poem’s setting and speaker.

What is The Turn in poetry?

A shift in thought or emotion, often found in sonnets.

What are the Genres of Poetry?

Lyrical, Narrative, and Dramatic poetry.

What is an Elegy?

A mournful poem, usually about death.

What is an Ode?

A formal, often ceremonious poem that praises a person, place, or thing.

What is an Epic?

A long narrative poem about heroic deeds, often involving gods or legends.

What is Meter?

The rhythmic structure of a poem, based on stressed and unstressed syllables.

What is Prosody?

The study of meter, rhythm, and intonation in poetry.

What is Scansion?

The analysis of a poem’s meter using symbols for stressed and unstressed syllables.

What are Scansion Symbols?

Marks used to show stressed (/) and unstressed (˘) syllables in poetry.

What are the types of Poetic Feet?

Iambic, Trochaic, Anapestic, Dactylic, Spondaic.

What is an Iamb?

A metrical foot with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (˘ /).

What is a Trochee?

A metrical foot with a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable (/ ˘).

What is an Anapest?

A metrical foot with two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable (˘ ˘ /).

What is a Dactyl?

A metrical foot with a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables (/ ˘ ˘).

What is a Spondee?

A metrical foot with two stressed syllables (/ /).

What is Rhyme Scheme?

The pattern of rhymes at the end of each line in a poem.

What is End Rhyme?

When the last words in two or more lines rhyme.

What is Internal Rhyme?

When words within a single line rhyme with each other.

What is Full Rhyme?

A perfect rhyme where the final syllables match exactly.

What is Slant Rhyme?

A near rhyme where the sounds are similar but not identical.

What is Alliteration?

The repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of words.

What is Assonance?

The repetition of vowel sounds within nearby words.

What is Consonance?

The repetition of consonant sounds within or at the end of words.

What is Onomatopoeia?

A word that imitates a sound (e.g., buzz, hiss, bang).

What is a Refrain?

A repeated line or phrase in a poem, often in ballads or villanelles.

What is Enjambment?

When a sentence or phrase continues beyond the end of a line without pause.